What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? (Hosea 6:4)

I am convinced that one of the greatest heartaches a human being can know is that of having wayward children. Watching the child growing obstinate and indifferent, making choices the parent knows will cost him beyond his purse is nigh unbearable. Love for the child is profound. The desire to extend grace and mercy is intense. All parenting seems to have been for naught and the slide continues. This is where God is with Ephraim and Judah. What is God (the Parent) feeling? What will Parenting look like now?

These questions are elementary for the hyper-Calvinist. He calculates, “God hated Esau and apparently hates Ephraim and Judah as well.” He confidently reasons, “Their rebellion proves they were simply not among the elect. For His own reasons, God has hardened their hearts and they will get what they deserve… Now, let me tend to my land.” I cannot think of a doctrine (or attitude) more desecrating to God’s Father-heart.

I’m betting my life that God’s heart is broken for all His wayward children; that He brings discipline to bear in the most efficient way in order to rescue us from fates unknown. I’m believing that it is painful for God to do this, but His love demands it. To withhold it is to doom the child to a tragic end. If He must discipline this child out of His jealous love, Hosea speaks;

Come, let us return to the Lord, for (even though) He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before Him. (Hosea 6:1-2, parenthesis and amendment mine)

God is the Creator and Ultimate Arbiter yet, as presumptuous as it may sound, God is also (and is primarily) our Father.  When God has children whose …

loyalty is like a morning cloud and like the dew which goes away early. He may have to hew them in pieces by the prophets; He may have to slay them by the words of His mouth. If He does, His judgments on the disciplined are like the light that goes forth. (an adaptation of Hosea 6:4-5)

It is my belief that when God’s Old Testament discipline seems severe to us, it is only because we do not know the depth our sin and the horrific consequence it will yield, left undisciplined. Even behind the harshest judgements recorded in scripture, there is a Father whose heart and circumstances are far far beyond our fragile intellectual grasp. In His judgements, He wasn’t wringing His hands, delighting in the misery He had dispersed. His heart was broken because His children were broken. I believe every act of God has been driven by the idea of dispersing mercy without compromising His expectations as a Father. Hosea (a man who intimately knew unfaithfulness) gives us counsel, in light of our Father’s heart;

So let us know, let us press on to know the LordHis going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.

To all of us who are trusting exclusively in Christ, God is our Father. Jesus Christ is our older brother. He is the first in a new race of beings. We are members of an eternal family and citizens of a new and never-ending kingdom, by way of His marvelous and incomprehensible grace. Therfore it is essential that we understand that God …

delights in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of Him rather than burnt offerings. (an adaption of Hosea 6:6)

Where the knowledge of God as Father is unknown, man inevitably reverts to sacrifice. It may not be burnt offerings, but he will come up with something and all of his somethings add up to religion – the things man imagines he might do to make and keep things right between God and himself. Religion is a desecration of all that is truly holy because it imagines something man can do (or give) amends the problem. Our problem is light years more complicated than anything we might imagine. Only God could deal with it. And He did so by coming in person and absorbing His wrath upon Himself. Of Hosea’s contemporaries, perhaps Isaiah was seeing the Father’s heart most clearly;

But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:10-11)

My dear family, if there was a big bang (and I suspect their was), its core was not just unstable matter, it was the Father’s heart.

Father, that we might grasp the depth of our deformity and the targeted height of our transformation; that our hearts would be steeped in humility and yet in confidence. May our hearts be saturated in gratitude and celebration. To You Almighty, All Holy, Father and Friend. So be it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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